


To Be Free

by psychicmewhealer



Category: Aladdin (2019)
Genre: Acute stress disorder, Alternate Canon, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Captivity, Claustrophobia, Comfort/Angst, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Freedom, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Genie (Disney) Needs a Hug, Heavy Angst, Hugs, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Long Live Feedback Comment Project, Magic, Not Canon Compliant, Poetry, Psychological Trauma, Slavery, Tags Contain Spoilers, Tags May Change, The boundary between poetry and prose is arbitrary tho, Trapped, Trauma, Triggers, and of course my copyrights of the following, because magic systems are just suffering systems, magic is painful in this, there are some tweaks because i needed more angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28954434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychicmewhealer/pseuds/psychicmewhealer
Summary: A narration of the moments after Aladdin sets Genie free. Genie is taken by surprise.--Or: why has the Walt Disney Company taken up so much of my brain space so now I can only produce Disney-related angst
Relationships: Aladdin & Genie (Disney), im SORRY if you ship them romantically but you can read it that way if you want
Kudos: 8





	To Be Free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theunremarkable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theunremarkable/gifts).



> TW's are all in tags. Please check those before you read. Safety is paramount!!
> 
>  **If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts:**  
>  You can call 1-800-273-8255 in the US | 1.833.456.4566 in Canada (not Quebec) | 1.866.277.3553 in Quebec | 116-123 in UK & Ireland | text 45645 from 4pm - Midnight ET in Canada
> 
>  **If you are going through a crisis:**  
>  You can text HOME to 741741 (in the US & Canada), 85258 (in the UK), or 50808 (in Ireland)
> 
> Please stay safe!!! You are loved
> 
> * * *
> 
> I gifted this fic to theunremarkable because my semi-poetry style here sort of reminded me of the stellar, divine Bucky h/c fic [_Take Control_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25331167), which everyone is legally mandated to read.
> 
> The scene I’m narrating is [here](https://youtu.be/zWgBZ7erqDo), from [1:07](https://youtu.be/zWgBZ7erqDo?t=67s)-[2:07](https://youtu.be/zWgBZ7erqDo?t=127s). I do deviate from this scene a couple times, so if you feel like it, you can see where I differ from canon for maximum angst.
> 
> I’d advise you read this on the biggest screen you have, because this does have poetry-esque formatting to it that can’t adjust to a small screen such as a phone.

No, you don’t.  
You wish for me to change the law,  
Or Your lean mass composition,  
Or Your ability to fly an arrow through the eye of a needle  
and gain the favor of seventy maidens.

No one wishes a genie free.

Nevertheless, I obey.

My head bows by the magic threads that govern me.  
My bejeweled shackles fall  
with my skin  
and they shatte  
r like  
cera  
mic.

My vision is stars, sparkles, pops,  
like little firecrackers,  
looking towards each other with a nervous grin,  
not knowing what event they mark.

My hands tremble  
My legs shake  
The touch of my skin to itself to the ground to my skin-blue robes to the tug of my hair from a golden band fires thunderbolts in my insides and electrocuting my brain and making it bounce in my skull

But I can’t be free because I’m a _genie_ and _no one wishes a genie free_.

I wave my hand to return to Master’s reality.  
My robes remain blue, my skin remains brown, my limbs remain tremulous.

Master ― no, Aladdin ― no, Master ―  
His face evokes a mother’s  
despite the fact that I’m a couple thousand years older than Him  
and He looks seventeen  
and His only parent was a little monkey  
who ―

the thought arrives through a long-guarded door ―  
is ugly and exasperating.

“No, let me try something,” I enunciate.  
My mouth is moist and bitter.  
How do humans deal with the feeling,  
the itching of fabrics on new soft skin,  
the little cracks on their hands,  
the reality, the gravity, the drenching of their tongues?

“Tell me to do something.”

Master grins. “Uhhh...get me some jams.”

Magical winds fail to gust through my palms  
My body is not a million little holes cut with lamp-shaped daggers  
I feel not the rending of my skeleton by infinitely small yet infinitely strong threads  
I am no longer impaled

Vocal folds jam into my throat  
I manage  
“Get them yourself?”  
it comes out  
mouselike

My body ― my _human_ body ― it’s fallen apart under the weight of every lamp on Agrabah but sprung together and I’m not gas anymore but I can reach the sky

My human mind and human body work as one.  
I jump.  
“Get your own jams!” I make a hearty smile.  
Aladdin bursts like an overflowing jam jar

He did not wish for favors or wealth or to change the law  
He wished for tangled metaphysical wires assembled by magic tornadoes to turn into a man  
He wished for me.

No more suffocation.  
No more dark cramped endless nights that last ten thousand years.  
No more floating through space with a numbness of touch and a bow in my head.  
No more tugging and ripping at my frame and not existing.  
Time exists. Space exists. I exist. I am a man.  
My face twitches and now blood is gushing through my body like a sea storm.

Aladdin reaches in for a hug and I remember

what hugs are.  
trapped. my breath  
grows shallow my  
eyes flutter in  
and out of  
being I _bounce  
in the lamp  
in the dark  
for ten thousand  
years  
_I step away.

Inhale,

Exhale.

No metal blocks my chest’s expansion,  
only the light itching of expensive fabrics  
on priceless human skin.

I hold up a finger. One second.  
He steps back. _He listens._  
He raises his hands like a child’s,  
showing his disbelieving mother he hasn’t taken a piece of baklava.

_He set me free and now he listens._

But my hands hold no shackles, and tears well up in my airborne eyes,  
and I long for the embrace of free, equal men.  
So I extend my arms.

Gentle. His embrace is gentle. I can leave at any time.  
But I don’t.  
My chin locks on his shoulder  
My palm locks on his back  
My face electrifies  
Ten thousand years of tears cascade from my ducts.

“Thank you,” I whisper between hiccups and sobs.

“I’m so sorry, Genie,” Aladdin’s chin massages my new trapezius.  
“I’m so sorry I didn’t set you free my first wish.”

He should be.

And yet, despite everything, he listened.  
Despite everything, all I feel is Aladdin’s gentle hands.  
Despite everything,  
I am free.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's [a post-structuralist analysis of Aladdin (2019) I wrote on Tumblr](https://psychicmewhealer.tumblr.com/post/642784721279074304/to-be-free-psychicmewhealer-aladdin-2019) that inspired, and might bring light to, this fic.
> 
> I imagine the genie with PTSS/acute stress disorder rather than PTSD because PTSD only can be diagnosed after a month of symptoms/the trauma ([source, criterion F, p272, 309 of pdf](https://cdn.website-editor.net/30f11123991548a0af708722d458e476/files/uploaded/DSM%2520V.pdf)) while the genie has probably been out of the lamp in a human brain for less than a month, so he wouldn’t qualify, but he would qualify for PTSS ([source](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29319653/)). I imagine that in Genie’s transformation to humanity, his brain correctly processes his trauma memories as best it can, and with hard work trauma processing and help from Dahlia, whomst we stan, Genie comes out more or less in one piece from his ordeal.
> 
> * * *
> 
> [Say hi on Tumblr, if you want!](https://psychicmewhealer.tumblr.com)
> 
> * * *
> 
> **If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts:**  
>  You can call 1-800-273-8255 in the US | 1.833.456.4566 in Canada (not Quebec) | 1.866.277.3553 in Quebec | 116-123 in UK & Ireland | text 45645 from 4pm - Midnight ET in Canada
> 
>  **If you are going through a crisis:**  
>  You can text HOME to 741741 (in the US & Canada), 85258 (in the UK), or 50808 (in Ireland)
> 
> Please stay safe!!! You are loved
> 
> * * *
> 
> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * Constructive criticism
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> [LLF Comment Builder](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/post/170952243543/now-presenting-the-llf-comment-builder-beta)  
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> If you don’t want a reply, for any reason (sometimes I feel shy when I’m reading and not up to starting a conversation, for example), feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will appreciate it but not respond!


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